…when those who believe they have the authority to do whatever they want meet the reality of the moment. The scales fall from the eyes of the electorate and the facade fades away.Obama has in the past decried that our Constitution handcuffed him from doing what he wanted to do. Unfortunately, McConnell and Boehner handed Obama the key to those cuffs. They’ve turned the Congress into the Reichstag, nest they’ll set it on fire.

“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action. [snip]

The power to tax lies in the House as must all money bills. That is in the Constitution.
ObamaCare originated in the Senate which makes it unconstitutional. Obama has no authority to raise taxes or issue Social Security cards. Drivers licenses are the purview of the states. Congress, that feckless batch of RINO’s, did and does nothing to stop him.
Actually Boehner has tried to run roughshod over House members to give Obama what he wants, even going so far as to enlisting Pelosi’s help to pass legislation.

Sanders sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew Friday identifying a number of executive actions he believes the IRS could take, without any input from Congress, that would close loopholes currently used by corporations. In the past, IRS lawyers have been hesitant to use executive actions to raise significant amounts of revenue, but that same calculation has change in other federal agencies since Obama became president.

Obama’s preferred option would be for Congress to pass a corporate tax hike that would fund liberal infrastructure projects like mass transit. But if Congress fails to do as Obama wishes, just as Congress has failed to pass the immigration reforms that Obama prefers, Obama could take actions unilaterally instead. This past November, for example, Obama gave work permits, Social Security Numbers, and drivers licenses to approximately 4 million illegal immigrants.

House Speaker John Boehner is expected to move soon — as early as Wednesday — to bring up the clean bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for a vote on the House floor, according to two House GOP sources familiar with leadership discussions.

The plan is for a Republican member to bring up the Senate bill as a “privileged resolution,” which would mean it would get relatively quick vote on the House floor. Sources say leaders are still working out the timing, and who would offer the resolution to begin the process.

Although under House rules a Democrat could try to force this vote, these sources say it will be a House Republican who will move to proceed with the vote on the funding bill.

Conservatives have been demanding a conference committee with the House and Senate to work out the differences on the DHS spending bill. But on Monday, as expected, Senate Democrats voted to block any effort to set up a conference committee. [snip]

A Jewish Young Man was seeing a psychiatrist for an eating and sleeping disorder.
“I am so obsessed with my mother… As soon as I go to sleep, I start dreaming, and everyone in my dream turns into my mother.

I wake up in such a state, all I can do is go downstairs and eat a piece of toast.”

The psychiatrist replies: “What, just one piece of toast, for a big boy
like you?”

In Vermont the current logic concerning Climate Change requires one has to adopt concepts such as this protester of fossil fuels. As you can see they have a tentative grip on reality. When one is impaled by unicorns over and again this is the result.

Vermont, with luck, will be fossil fuel free within two years. Six months after that, Vermont should be completely business free except for Ellie McAddled’s Totally Organic and Green B&B, 15 macrame shops and of course many places to get honey, candles and joss sticks.

Vermont’s business prospects aren’t so bright. Vermont is losing business and with that, jobs.
From the Eagle

Vermont’s declining manufacturing base blamed on feds

Vermont will lose 3.4 percent of its manufacturing jobs by 2023 due to Obama administration climate regulations, according to a report on the impact of EPA rules on labor.

In recent years, the EPA has issued new rules for power plants and vehicles in an attempt to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

While many studies examine how the rules will affect global emissions, a study published last week by the Heritage Foundation calculates how many manufacturing jobs states will lose due to environmental regulations.

According to the report, the U.S. will surrender 586,000 manufacturing jobs by 2023 due to increased regulatory cost burdens on businesses. Of those job losses, an estimated 1,378 will come from Vermont.

While 34 states will lose between 3 percent to 4 percent of manufacturing jobs, nine states — including one New England state — will experience even higher job losses.

Among New England states, setbacks for workers will range from 2,260 losses in Rhode Island to 3,452 losses in New Hampshire. [snip]

McAddled favors a carbon tax, she’s written letters to the papers espousing this point. That convolution is the proximate, precipitate cause of the decline is manufacturing and attendant jobs.

Making matters worse is the coinciding rise in electric rates. They can’t go anywhere but higher since the State is determined to have only expensive forms of power produced.

For observers of the legislative goings-on at the statehouse, H.40 is an unusually big solution to a rather narrow problem—namely, the shady double-counting of carbon credits in Vermont.

Vermont and other states are part of a carbon-trading scheme that forces nonrenewable energy companies to pay fees to renewable energy companies, as a kind of penalty for not producing green energy. In exchange for paying the fee, these entities get a renewable energy certificate, or REC, saying they are renewable-energy compliant.

However, Vermont has been selling renewable certificates to entities in other states while at the same time counting them towards their own renewable energy requirements. The accounting trick hit a snag recently when other states caught on and said they won’t buy RECs from Vermont unless the state changes its policy. [snip]

The potential loss of $50 million in REC revenues would force Vermont utility companies to raise electric rates overnight — possibly by as much as 6 percent this year, and even more in subsequent years.

While the REC crisis might have been remedied through a brief, stand-alone bill, lawmakers have instead crafted a 50-page bill that launches a comprehensive overhaul of the state’s energy system. [snip]

Over a recent five-year period, electricity prices in Vermont have risen from 12.3 cents per kilowatt hour to 14.2 cents per kilowatt hour, or about 15 percent. The cost can only go higher as H.40 replaces low-cost energy with high-cost renewables.

When asked why the committee passed a comprehensive overhaul of Vermont’s energy system to fix a broken REC trading system, Van Wyck said it was part of a larger environmentalist agenda. [snip]

Van Wyck added that the push for a comprehensive change to Vermont’s energy system is also coming from the Department of Public Service. [snip]

Regardless of who or what is behind the passage of H.40, Post says there’s plenty of irony to be found in the REC controversy.

“Vermont is building renewable energy and reducing CO2 — it just can’t take credit for it. In other words, we’re ruining our meadows, we’re ruining our ridgelines, but Connecticut can take credit for it.”

If you haven’ figured out yet what a Progressive/ Socialist form of Governance looks like and how it works, here it is in action. The elite decide what is good for you and you get to pay for their folly.

More than likely if you live in the Northeast, you have this form of politician telling you how to live, what you may eat, determine your utility costs and probably punish you for driving a car.

Money votes with it’s feet. So does business. Vermont cannot pay for the unfunded pension plans. They touted the single payed health care insurance. They don’t have the money to make it work, never will and they have idiots demanding that the state put it into effect.

When I lived in Vermont (I’m a native) I saw this happening faster and faster. The blog got it’s name because of the loony thinking. I got out in 2009, moved to South Carolina.